Holiday Hangover

Christmas happened. NYE happened. 2012 fucking happened.

But first! A holiday recap!

It was a wonderful Christmas, but also a Christmas I never, ever want to experience again. Suffice to say, the manfriend's mom isn't doing too well, so that made for a hard, emotional visit to Michigan. But it was also delightful to see everyone again and we found little pockets of fun. And big buckets of bourbon.

First of all, we had Barclay with us. For 15 hours, round trip, in the car. That's a lot of dog and a lot of hours.

He found ways to entertain himself.

We were tasked with making the Christmas Eve dinner. In the manfriend's family, that means roast beef, spinach bacon salad, mashed potatoes, and Yorkshire pudding. He tackled the meat, I tackled the rest.

Good looking man and good looking meat.

Barclay supervised.

Christmas morning was your typical handing out of gifts and littering the room with wrapping paper.

My favorite part of the morning was breakfast. I know you're shocked. On the drive in, we stopped at a deli in Ann Arbor called Zingerman's to buy - wait for it - fancy bacon. We showed up with a quarter pound each of cherrywood smoked and applewood smoked bacons. It was the best bacon I have ever had in my life. Ever. For anyone who's interested, they have a bacon of the month club...

My second favorite part was inheriting this beauty from the manfriend's mom:

We got snowed in at his mom's house an extra day, but still made it to The Motherland. You may know it as "Kentucky." It was a brief, yet rejuvenating 22 hours.

Aside from the Curl Catastrophe, New Years Eve and Day was super fun. We went to two parties, ate too much, drank too much, danced like the nerdy white people we are, got home at 3:30am, and passed the hell out. In the morning, the manfriend made this salty-protein-hangover-cure breakfast:

~~~

In so many ways, this was a great, wonderful year. And in so many ways, this year was total shit. But I guess that's just how years go. I quit two jobs and I'm broke, but I'm happier now than I have been for a long time. The manfriend and I traveled to New York City, Mackinac Island, DC, and each family outpost twice. We've grown into our relationship and I am disgustingly happy with him every single day. I only hope 2013 has more of the good and less of the crap. But as long as the manfriend is around, it will all be ok.

OMG FEELINGS.

Quick! Look at this picture of me using the stand mixer while wearing curlers!

Happy 2013!!